A Passage To India (Penguin Classics) is a book about prejudice between British people and Indians in 1920s. The story is set in pre-Independence India, when it was ruled by the British, and it questions whether a friendship between a British person and an Indian would have been possible in those prejudiced times.
The book begins with two Englishwomen, the old Mrs Moore and Miss Adela Quested deciding to tour India. Mrs Moor befriends a charismatic Indian doctor named Aziz. A few days later, Aziz offers to take the ladies on a trip to the Marabar Caves. Mrs Moore feels claustrophobic once they are there so she decides to stay behind, and Aziz and Adela continue exploring the caves. In the darkness of the caves, Adela goes missing and Aziz finds her broken spectacles. He searches for her worriedly, only to find her talking to another Englishwoman outside. The two of them leave before he can go up to them, so he returns to the railway station with Mrs Moore.
However, Aziz is soon taken into custody for sexually assaulting Adela in the caves. The case causes the racial tension and prejudices between the Indian and the white community to bubble up and boil over. The British people are convinces of Aziz’s guilt because their prejudice directs them to believe that all Indian men cannot contain their lust for British women.
A Passage To India (Penguin Classics) was published by Penguin UK in 2005 in paperback.
Key Features
- The book won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction.
- TIME selected it in its list of the 100 Best English-language novels published from 1923 to 2005.
Review
In a world far removed from the one in which Forster was writing, is there any place for a novel like A Passage to India other than as an idle curiosity of a bygone era? Written based on first hand experience of the British Raj, this open critique of colonialism caricatures the Anglo-Indian in his element, questioning the morality and justification of the British presence in the subcontinent. A Passage to India is built upon its characters, who are the led through a fairly mundane plot, a jejune stage for the actors to perform upon. Yet through their actions, we discover this world of Empire, where Anglo-Indians hold themselves aloof from the population, where relationships are grounded on the basis of ruler and ruled. Forster challenges the British Raj as it was then. But he also poses questions relevant to our everyday lives: can the cultures of East and West ever truly understand one another? is it possible even for two individuals to truly understand one another? can anything good ever come from a relationship in which one party dominates the other? and what can we really understand about ‘identity’ through the prism of nationhood? There is no doubt much in this book which can be analysed and overanalysed to the nauseating degree that only a literature class can provoke, and I can imagine that many who studied this novel in a classroom environment learned only to hate it. Where the simplicity of the plot provides only a thread for the characters to follow, the imagery of India’s weather and terrain, her townships and cultural diversity, combine to provide symbolic tapestry lending itself to interpretation –By Felix Valencia on 3 Nov. 2012
A Passage to India is set in the rural landscape during a time of British occupation. This is a (not necessarily damning) examination and critique of colonialism and offers a very wide view of the issues it raises. There are no heroics here. Aziz is the downtrodden ‘native’ character, apallingly abused, to whom my sympathies attached, and yet the hatred that surrounds him turns him to hatred and propels down a vengeful path towards a kind of destruction. Only his long-standing friendship with Mr. Fielding can save him, but Mr. Fielding is English, and Aziz must reconcile himself with this and conquer his own hatred. –By Dan Crawford on 2 Aug. 2012
The language of this work is by far the best I’ve come across. Amazing! E M Forster is undoubtedly one of the most eloquent writers. The character build-up is slow, steady and realistic. Gives a very close picture of the Indian society that existed during the British Raj and remnants of which can still be found in us Indians – not only our buildings, out attitude, our tastes and our demeanor in general –Saad Hashmi Dec 30, 2014
About the Author
E M Forster was an English author, and essayist. He studied at King’s College, Cambridge and volunteered with the International Red Cross during WWI. HE became the secretary of the Maharajah of Dewas, India in the 1920s. He then returned to London and established himself as a BBC Radio broadcaster. He was selected as an honorary fellow of King’s College and he became a Companion of Honour, and a member of the Order of Merit. Forster has written novels like A Room With A View, Maurice, The Longest Journey, Where Angels Fear To Tread, and Howards End.
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